


Belonging

by telracsactually



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Hafu, Hinata is mixed, M/M, Underage Smoking, delinquent!au, mixed!Hinata
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-24
Updated: 2015-07-24
Packaged: 2018-04-10 23:19:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,092
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4411802
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/telracsactually/pseuds/telracsactually
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first time Hinata had learned he was mixed, one of his classmates had asked him why he was wearing a kimono. He thought it was obvious, looking around him and seeing other kids dressed just like him. It was the first festival Hinata would be old enough to remember, but no longer for the reasons he thought he would.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Belonging

**Author's Note:**

> I had asked on my tumblr for a prompt because I really wanted to write, and somehow, looking at the prompt I got, I started wondering about mixed babies in Japan and how that's being handled. That led me to do a lot of research, and then with ohmilk's delinquent!AU (which is SO GOOD btw), I was like, "Well, what if Hinata was a delinquent because he's mixed and was teased for it?"
> 
> And then this monster happened. I did my best to create a believable world, but in no way do I know enough about Japan to claim this is in any way near a proper or true reflection. I exaggerated some things to get my point across, but the experience of not belonging because of your identity and ethnicity is something I know well, so I hope that shows.
> 
> I hope you enjoy it!

Hinata wished he wasn’t so squeamish in the face of ugly puberty, but the way this guy’s chipped tooth hung over his bottom lip had his eyebrow ticking, and two tight fists inching out of his too-big, black sweater.  

“What did you just say?”

Hinata was well aware of his sweet skin, its youth, the feminine roundness of his cheeks. His face held to a fairytale boyish charm not easily found in the countryside of his hometown, but the prettiness made him an easy target for anyone who thought he wouldn’t put up a fight.

Hinata’s height gave him the perfect view of the pimple screaming underneath the guy’s chin. The sight had his stomach in a whirlwind of disgust and pity—and his face showed it.

“If you were actually _Japanese,_ you would understand what I’m saying, _”_ the guy placed his hands on his kneesand lowered himself until all Hinata could see was a condescending glare. “Tell me, if I speak slower, would you understand me better?”

Hinata blinked owlishly over the guy’s shoulder. He pretended something interesting was going on behind him, and the guy, unsure of what the boy was staring at, let his guard down.

He squinted, and slowly turned his head. “What are you—“

There was the loud sound of foreheads bashing. Hinata shook off the initial throbbing, and without much calculation, swiveled his body around for a roundhouse right at the guy’s side. Hinata stumbled on his footing as the guy fell over with a resonating cry, clutching his lower rib.

“What the fuck?!”

Hinata steadied himself, then pushed his bangs out of his face. “Relax, Saburo.”

“You fucking shit!”

Hinata dusted off his pants. When he looked up, he noticed a boy in perfect uniform standing a good ways away from him, button-down shirt tucked in without the sleeves rolled up. As soon as Hinata laid eyes on him, the boy disappeared back inside the school.

“I’m going to fuck you up, Shōyō!”

Hinata grumbled, and ignored him.

The ginger moved to gather the contents of his bag, which had earlier been thrown out of a second-floor window that saw to the back of the school. He found one of his folders torn up by the gate; two pages of an essay he had finished up in the school library were missing, and there was no way he was going to will himself to re-write them once he’d get home.

“Great…owuf!”

Saburo wrapped his arm around Hinata’s neck and held tight. Hinata forced his thin fingers between the skin of his throat and the other guy’s arm in an attempt to breathe.

“As if I’d let a midget half-Japanese piece of shit get away with kicking my ass,” he growled into Hinata’s ear.

Hinata struggled against him. He focused all of his weight on his left side, but in a sudden show of strength, Saburo lifted him off the ground.

Hinata couldn’t find solid ground anymore. The guy was cackling into his neck; the sound slithered over him like something grotesque. Running out of options, Hinata did the only thing he could do quickly—he bit him.

There were teeth piercing intp the ugly boy’s arm. Saburo cried out, and Hinata fell to the ground, hacking fiercely.

“You fucking little—“

“ _What_ is going on here?!”

Hinata blinked wearily at a round man whose hair seemed to slide off the shine of his head. He swallowed thickly. 

“You,” said the principal, pointing at Saburo, “my office. You,” his voice indicated Hinata in its unwavering disappointment and inflection, “detention effective immediately, and then my office.”

* * *

That was how he ended up in a lonely room, balancing a pen over his lip while his neck bruised over the course of the hour. The teacher, a small man with a kind smile, handled his glasses nervously before catching Hinata’s attention.

“Are you sure you don’t need a nurse?”

Hinata dropped the pen, and fixed his superior with an easy smile. “You keep asking me that, Takeda-sensei.” 

“I’m worried about you.” He sent the door a nervous look, then laid anxious eyes on his student. “This is the fourth time I’m seeing you this week. And now it’s a fight?”

At the mention of the fight, Hinata looked down at his desk and frowned. “It’s not my fault.”

“I know,” said Takeda, and this earned him a surprised look. “I know you, Hinata. You aren’t one to cause fights.”

Takeda walked closer to Hinata’s desk, and sat across from him. He had a faraway look in his eyes, as if he had seen so many futures for his student, and none of them ever included Hinata walking with a swollen neck.

“Cry out for attention, maybe,” continued Takeda, “But you aren’t a fighter at heart.”

Hinata smiled half-heartedly. He looked out the window, and noticed a familiar boy in perfect uniform, and dark, straight hair. “Oh.”

“Hm?”

Hinata only caught a glimpse of his face, but there was a strong bone structure underneath the soft skin.

“That guy…”

Takeda moved a little to look out the window, and smiled. “Oh, yes. I don’t know if you care to know this,” he began, “but you have him to thank for us getting there in time.”

“What’s his name?”

“Kageyama Tobio.”

Hinata tasted recognition on his tongue. “Karasuno’s setter?”

This seemed to excite his doe eyed professor. “You recognize him?”

“Only by rumor, really,” Hinata shrugged. “He’s not in my class.”

Kageyama Tobio had a history that followed him straight to high school. The only proof he had to show for it was pure talent. Hinata had once stayed afterschool for a practice match with a neighboring high school. He wasn’t disappointed.

The boy radiated intensity. Volleyball seemed like a sunshine sport, but the boy was arctic. He couldn’t keep his eyes off him—the calm boy with the kinglike touch. He ached to match him…among other things.

“Well, he was the one who found me and told me about what was happening. He knows it wasn’t your fault.”

Hinata blinked. “But why would he do that?”

Takeda shrugged, “I’m not sure I’m the right person to answer that.”

Hinata touched his neck. He felt a strange throbbing, wincing when he felt how tender it was. “He really didn’t have to do that.”

Takeda took Hinata’s silence to lay down his own card.

“You should come to volleyball practice. I’m the faculty advisor, you know. It’s a good group of boys we’ve got there.”

Hinata just looked at him.

“You don’t have to join,” Takeda retracted, “but even if you just want to thank Kageyama. We’re open to you.”

“What makes you think I want to thank him?” he crossed his arms, giving the man a curious look.

“Kageyama is inherently a nice boy. And call it intuition but,” he fixed his glasses for the last time, and smiled confidently, “I think the two of you would make great friends.”

“Yeah, right.”

Friendship was a concept lost on him.

“He’s just like you, you know,” Takeda said. “It’s not my business to tell you how,” he said immediately after noticing the enticed stare Hinata shot him. “But you have more in common than you think. Stop by sometime. I’d rather see you on the court after school is over, than in detention. Okay?”

The boy inwardly groaned.

Takeda was, if anything else, someone who truly cared for his students’ wellbeing. It made it hard for Hinata to look him in the face without feeling a mix of gratitude and embarrassment.

“I’ll think about it.”

* * *

Hinata wasn’t on the verge of expulsion like he had thought he would be. The principal did, however, threaten to suspend him for a couple of days if he were to get in another fight. The suspension was more due to his collection of detentions than to what happened yesterday.

He spent the next couple of days laying low. Sometimes he’d catch sight of Kageyama walking towards a vending machine or heading to the school gym. These were just fleeting moments, though. Otherwise, Hinata had concluded that the dark-haired boy was the type to go straight to school and go straight home.

The next time Hinata saw him, it was when he had been sitting up on a branch to eat his lunch.

Kageyama, accompanied by a blonde girl with stars in her hair, was walking from the school building to the school gymnasium as stoic as the rumors had painted him. The girl contrasted him nicely, but the perpetual pink dusting her cheeks washed Hinata over with an unexpected wave of something he could only call envy.

It was the closest glimpse he had gotten into Kageyama’s social life.

Hinata downed his packed lunch, and rushed back to the school library until it was time to head back to homeroom. He liked to kill time by reading any books he could find on food and cooking, or any sports magazines they happened to have.

Once he was back in class, he couldn’t help the constant shifting in his seat.

He was curious about Kageyama. He had a tan people travelled to the beach for, eyes a blue-black sensual darkness Hinata wanted to stare into while sighing life into his mouth. He felt a stirring at the pit of his stomach at the thought, and there went the first box checked off.

Hinata was never the type to deny his own physical attraction.

But Takeda had brought up that he was just like him, and that only begged the question of how. Hinata was pretty sure Kageyama couldn’t get detention even if he tried. The worst thing Kageyama could do was probably un-tuck and unbutton his shirt his shirt, which…

The boy, lost in thoughts of tall boys and kissing, was lazily doodling a grumpy face on the side of his notebook when a crumbled paper bounced on his desk. He looked around, but didn’t notice anyone indicating they had thrown the paper.

His fingers moved to unwrap it. His eyes scanned the note.

“Seriously?”

He smacked the paper on his desk. There was laughter bubbling up from behind him as all eyes fell on him, and even the teacher shot him a dirty look.

“What is it this time, Hinata?”

 _This time_. As if it hadn’t been happening since he started school here.

“I have to go to the bathroom,” he lied.

“And that excuses interrupting my class?”

“My stomach really hurts,” he said, packing up his bag. He ignored his teacher’s calls and zoomed out of class.

_Go back to where you came from._

The first time Hinata had learned he was mixed, one of his classmates had asked him why he was wearing a _kimono_. He thought it was obvious, looking around him and seeing other kids dressed just like him. It was the first festival Hinata would be old enough to remember, but no longer for the reasons he thought he would.

“Only Japanese people can wear that,” is what woke Hinata up from colorless sleep. In that moment, the texture of his hair and the color of his eyes suddenly had an explanation.

The world was hardly the same. He couldn’t miss the lingering looks upon picking snacks at the store, or the curious stares from his classmates and their parents when he’d meet his Japanese mother after school let out.

All at once, things were explaining themselves.

After his first term at Karasuno, Hinata had taken the bus to the closest mall, and paid for a painful set of small-sized gauges. His mother wasn’t exactly happy when he came home with actual holes in his ears—but she didn’t fight his decision either.

“They can still close up, right?”

Hinata had shrugged, “They’re small enough to close up, I think.”

She had only sighed, and told him to help Natsu set up for dinner.

Whenever he’d ride his bike to the store to pick up eggs or milk, Hinata’s eyes would linger on the cigarettes. Towards the end of middle school to the beginning of high school, he had been riddled with bad decisions. Even though he knew this, he wanted to take his time in feeling out every single one he would make.

He had purchased an e-cig online, and started smoking outside the shop he frequented for groceries. He always had it on him whenever moments like these happened.

_Go back to where you came from._

If Hinata felt any sense of belonging to what made up the other half of him, he’d escape there in a heartbeat.

Something hard smacked his nose.

“Oh, my, fuck--are you kidding me—“

A hand over his nose, he took in the perfect uniform, followed it up until he saw the dark ocean eyes and a pouty mouth that couldn’t decide between a smile and a frown, and held his breath.

“S-sorry…”

He didn’t seem like the type to stutter, but he that tan Hinata had come to admire from a distance played across his skin so beautifully, that Hinata had the urge to reach out to and just feel. The taller boy’s hair hung just above his eyes, but he could tell, by the stiffness in his shoulders and the awkward way he wouldn’t meet Hinata’s gaze that he didn’t know where to go from here.

“Kageyama?”

He seemed to wear confusion well.

“You’re Kageyama, right? Karasuno’s setter?”

“Uh, yeah?”

“I’m Hinata,” he said with smile, “but you already knew that, right?”

Kageyama blinked. “I’ve seen you around.”

“Oh,” Hinata said, and Kageyama stiffened again as Hinata circled him. He let his eyes linger below the waist until Kageyama turned and they faced each other again. “Do you always help out people you just see around?”

A blush spread over Kageyama’s cheeks. Hinata wondered if anyone would think that the same boy who radiated aggressive intensity on the court was the same boy who flustered this easily. He couldn’t think of Kageyama as anything less than cute.

“Not…not all of them,” he struggled to get out, peeking at Hinata’s smile.

Hinata savored the eyes on him. “Thank you,” he said. Kageyama seemed to squirm.

“Natru—no problem.”

“Do you have practice today?” Hinata asked. Kageyama’s shoulders visibly relaxed at the mention.

“Yes. We have practice every day.”

Hinata leaned against the wall, and eyed him curiously. “Don’t you get tired?” he asked. His thumb languidly dragged itself over his lower lip, the corner of his mouth coming to a lop-sided smile when Kageyama kept looking between his eyes and his mouth.

“I never get tired of volleyball,” he shook his head. “I want to be the best.”

“Oh?” Hinata looked at him through his lashes. “You think you can get there?”

“Of course.”

“Volleyball is a team sport, you know,” Hinata said, like it should have been news to him. But Kageyama didn’t falter.

“I never said I’d get there alone.”

That was it. That was the spark.

Something lit up in Hinata. He wasn’t sure what it was; maybe it was the fire in Kageyama’s voice. The innocence in his wish, the confidence in his voice. It was like the sport was never a question for him.

Something in him wanted to be part of his success.

He stared. “Can I watch?”

“Me play volleyball?”

Hinata nodded.

Kageyama looked away for a moment, pursing his lips. “I don’t see why not.”

“I’ll see you after class, then.” Hinata winked, and had to walk away before he could make anything out of the way Kageyama turned red all over.

* * *

 Hinata changed his shoes before stepping into the gym, and was greeted with a familiar, sharp face, and bottle-blond hair.

“You,” said the man, “You always buy eggs on weekends.”

Hinata felt hot under his spotlight. “I…yes…?”

“You go here?”

“I don’t know if I’m more surprised, or you are,” Hinata decided on ultimately. The man nodded.

“I’m the coach. Are you looking to join?”

Hinata snorted, “No, I’m just _looking._ ”

Ukai crossed his arms over his chest. The awkward thing wasn’t that they recognized each other because Hinata would always buy eggs at his store. The man had always warned Hinata that smoking is a bad habit, and the boy would always respond by saying it was just an e-cig.

“I’m not sure if—“

“Ukai-san!”

Hinata praised whatever God Takeda might have prayed to for always giving him such impeccable timing.

“It’s okay, I asked him to come,” said Takeda, leaning against the door as he made an effort to catch his breath. “Perhaps he’ll join if he likes what he sees?”

A couple of boys with impressive height came into his view behind Ukai. He spotted Kageyama amongst them, and watched him bend over and reach for his toes.

“Right, Hinata?” Takeda prompted. Ukai looked skeptical.

“Right,” the boy nodded with an impish grin.

Hinata sat off to the side as the boys went about their warm-up. It wasn’t as if Kageyama hadn’t noticed him. When they had locked eyes as Hinata had entered the gymnasium, he sent the brooding boy a glittering wave, and had to repress the urge to laugh when Kageyama had just stared back in a sort of daze.

Hinata watched the boys play with a sort of excitement he wasn’t used to showing. Everyone on the team had his own impressive quirk, but Hinata’s heart made noise every time the ball smacked the floor after a particularly powerful spike. He watched out for Kageyama’s toss. It never missed, but he always made a face after scoring. Like he wasn’t satisfied with something.

Hinata only had limited knowledge when it came to volleyball, but he couldn’t pinpoint what his problem could be. Still, Hinata even could say that Kageyama seemed a little antsy today.

“Uhm, e-excuse me…”

“Hm?” Hinata lifted his head up. It was the girl with the stars in her hair.

“Are you—are you here to join the club?”

She seemed to be always blushing, but her voice carried with underlying sweetness and a hint of authority. She fidgeted the more he looked at her, but the way she couldn’t meet his gaze for longer than a second filled him up with some sort of protective affection—she reminded him of his little sister.

And yet, the feeling of envy didn’t leave him.

“I’m thinking about it,” Hinata said slowly. “Who are you?”

“Y-yachi Hitoka!” she all but yelled. He winced. “Sorry, I get a little loud when I’m nervous…”

He toyed with his piercing. “Are you in the club?”

“Yes! I’m the new manager! Well, I’m not really the manager yet, Kiyoko-san is still the manager, but, she’s teaching me everything I need to know before she graduates,” Yachi explained rather quickly.

“Nice.” Hinata scooted over, and patted the empty space next to him. She knelt down and made herself comfortable. “What year are you?”

Her eyes watched the remnants of the bruise hugging his neck, but she didn’t ask about it. “I’m a first-year.”

“First-year? I’ve never seen you around!”

“What class are you in?”

“Class 1,” Hinata frowned. “My classmates are shitheads.”

Yachi laughed a little at that. “I’m in Class 5.”

Hinata arched his brow. Wasn’t that a college preparatory class?

“I don’t really get along with my classmates either,” Yachi continued. “Kageyama is in Class 3. Tuskishima and Yamaguchi,” she said, pointing out them on the court, “are in Class 4. That’s it for the first-years.”

“Oh. So what about the others?”

Yachi named all of the strangers on the team. Hinata was surprised to learn that only three of them were third-years—the height of the boys had thrown him off completely.

“Everyone is really nice,” she explained with a grin, “though, Tsukishima takes a while to get used to. I mean, Yamaguchi is very nice, and they’re always together, so Tsukishima can’t be as bad as he makes himself out to be. He’s just. Well…”

“You can say it,” Hinata egged her on. Yachi shook her head.

“I can’t.”

“Yes, you can!”

“He’s just misunderstood, that’s all! Everyone is quite sweet.”

“Hmm,” his fingers tapped at his shoes, toying with the laces. “Even Kageyama?”

She nodded feverishly. “He’s a simple-minded dork, if you ask me. But it took a while to get to know him. I help him out with English sometimes during lunch, and that’s how I know he’s not as scary as people think. The trick is just making him feel comfortable?”

Hinata gave her a knowing smile. Her hair whipped violently as she shook her head.

“It’s really not like that—Kageyama isn’t—“ she stopped herself. “Uhm.”

“Isn’t what?”

“Nothing. Isn’t not nothing,” she smiled nervously.

Hinata was getting ready for a rebuttal when the coach had clapped his hands together and called an end to their practice.

“Oh, notes! It shouldn’t take long,” Yachi said, and she hurried to where all the boys were gathering. Hinata bumped his head against the wall and listened in, bored.

The information wasn’t anything interesting to him. Just basic criticisms and nuances the coach had noticed during practice. Hinata’s ears, however, perked up when he heard that Kageyama was tossing “too fast.”

“You need to slow down. We aren’t all freaks like you who can spike a toss like that. Some of us are actually human.”

Tsukishima, was it?

“I’ll work on it,” was all Kageyama said.

“Just remember the last time you tossed like that, _King._ There was no one waiting for you.”

“Tsukki…”

“I _said_ I’ll work on it.”

“Tsukishima, that’s enough. Kageyama, just—“

“Yeah, I know.”

Ukai nodded. “Alright, everybody. You’re dismissed _after_ you clean up this mess. Let’s get to work!”

* * *

Hinata felt a chill seeping through his sweater as he waited outside the gymnasium. The evening sky had the school casting a veil-like shadow over the yard. He could hear the ghost whispers of everyone who had already gone home for the day. It was a strange kind of lonely, because he didn't miss the people or the sound of them, but being outside in the dark of a usually bright and bustling school cloaked him in a haunting feeling of not belonging. The distance between him and them felt tangible here. The only light spilling from inside the school came from the gym, where he could hear the muffled laughter of the volleyball team, along with the sounds of wheeling carts and the squeak of sneakers sliding against the wooden floor. 

He had already retrieved his bike by the time Kageyama had stepped outside with a prominent scowl on his face. He walked with his fists in his sweater, and hesitated when he caught Hinata looking from his spot on the grass, where the light of the court still reached. 

“You don’t walk Yachi home?”

The question caught Kageyama off guard. “She walks with Kiyoko-san.”

Hinata soaked in his response and felt a rumbling in his veins. 

“So I get you all to myself, huh?” Hinata touched the handles of his bike, and called him over with a tilt of his head. “Do you go this way?”

Kageyama strangled the strap of his bag. “Y-yeah.”

“Let’s go, then.”

Kageyama kept himself a little behind Hinata. They hadn’t spoken much on the way. The silence wasn’t all that comfortable either. Hinata had grown accustomed to the uneasiness of others, especially when they had been caught alone with him. But Kageyama already felt different to them, and Hinata wasn’t sure how to feel about this ongoing silence.

“How long have you been playing volleyball?” Hinata asked him. He waited until Kageyama caught up with him before they continued on their lazy stroll side-by-side.

“Ever since I was a little kid.”

“Who taught you?”

“Uh, my dad gave me my first volleyball, but I played with my mom, mostly.”

That’s cute. “Gonna take us to nationals?”

“…maybe. I want to. We’re still an imperfect team.”

“Oh, yeah,” Hinata said, remembering an abandoned train of thought. “You kept making a face every time you tossed to anyone.”

“I did?”

Hinata nodded. “Are they not good enough for you?”

“They aren’t the problem,” Kageyama defended instinctively. Hinata frowned at him. “It’s just…I have a toss I want to use. But…there isn’t anyone I can do it with.”

“Hm.”

“It’s very… _zoom,”_ he said, “you know?”

Hinata nodded again. “I can zoom.”

“What?”

“I can jump too. See this branch?”

They had stopped underneath a tree. The branch was high—if Kageyama had his arm stretched out and jumped, he could probably reach it.

“Yeah?” Kageyama said, looking up at it.

“I can touch it. Watch me.”

Kageyama did so carefully.

When Hinata jumped, it was a lot like watching a bird take flight. He swung his arms in perfect form, dug his toes into the ground, and flew. His arm came up and touched the leaves hanging above the mark, and then they came fluttering down along with him, as he landed all bent knees and eyes on fire.

Kageyama could only stare as Hinata stood up, and smirked. “Told you so.”

“How did you—“

Hinata grabbed the handles on his bike again, and started walking off. Kageyama followed.

“I used to play too,” Hinata said. “It was fun. I liked spiking the ball.”

“Why did you stop?”

Hinata didn’t answer. He combed through the waves of his hair, then licked his lips. “Meet me for your lunch break tomorrow.”

Hinata wondered if Kageyama was trying to formulate an excuse not to, but all that came out was a slightly strangled, “Okay.”

* * *

Hinata liked the smell and sound of the rooftop. It was clean air without inhaling wet grass, without the unfiltered noise of the students gossiping over their lunches, or hiding behind their hands when they looked at him and wondered amongst themselves if he had been the one to put vaseline on all the door handles or tape over all the bathroom mirrors. He liked the isolation. The feeling of being so high up gave him a sense of perspective he wasn't allowed when surrounded by his classmates.

The two boys sat with their backs to the only door leading to Hinata’s gated haven. Kageyama ate his lunch slowly as Hinata sloppily chomped on his last bite. When Hinata finished, the smaller boy sucked on his fingers, keeping a steady gaze on the other boy, who was in the middle of taking another spoonful of rice. Kageyama choked on it.

Hinata picked up the juice box by Kageyama’s foot, and handed it over. The taller boy nodded graciously.

They made small talk about anything that came to mind—Hinata found out that Kageyama really _wasn’t_ the type to do anything else besides school and volleyball. His worst subject was English, because the grammar was beyond comprehension. Hinata couldn’t tell him what his worst subject was even if he wanted to, at least not by grade. He had skipped enough classes to say he was doing terribly in pretty much all of them, except for gym.

“Don’t you get in trouble?” asked Kageyama.

Hinata shrugged, and reached for his bag. He unzipped it, and started fishing for his e-cig. “I guess. But I don’t want to spend my time with those kids anyway.”

"I don't think you can play Volleyball with bad grades," Kageyama told him, swallowing a large slice of pork-chop. 

Hinata paused. "Oh. You can help me then, right?"

Kageyama nodded. He watched Hinata toy with the thing in his hand before he held it between his teeth, and took a steady, sensual drag. His breath came out in a thick fog, swirling in pretty figures, like someone had given life to their brushstrokes. 

It was the way Hinata threw his head back and curved his neck that had Kageyama swallowing rocks.

Hinata noticed it. “You want?” he offered.

He shook his head. “Anyway, why don’t you…” he swallowed hard—his mouth was unbelievably dry. “Why don’t you like your classmates?”

“They’re stupid, for one thing,” was the first thing Hinata said. “A bunch of ignorant idiots who don’t know anything.”

He took another smoke. This time it was short and came out of his nose. “I just—“ he continued, rolling his eyes and bouncing his knee, “--really hate people.”

Kageyama looked down at his own hands. “Oh.”

“I’m guessing you don’t?”

“I think I have trust issues,” Kageyama clarified.

“Oh, yeah?” Hinata smiled, “And who gave you that?”

“Junior high was terrible.”

They shared a laugh. 

“Who are you telling?”

* * *

The first time Hinata showed up for practice, it was more or less a test of skill. Hinata could barely receive the ball, a basic essential when it came to the sport. When Tsukishima had scoffed at his height, Hinata and Kageyama locked eyes and had come to the silent agreement that the only ones who would be walking away laughing would be them.

So when it was time for an attack, Kageyama didn’t wait for a signal. He instinctively knew wherever he would toss the ball, Hinata would be there waiting.

And Hinata was. When the ball hit the other side of the court for the first time, he could only stare at his hand in awe. It was stinging, and it was warm.

“How did you do that?” Hinata had asked him.

“What do you mean? You did that.”

“No,” Tsukishima interrupted, and his brow kept twitching as he spoke, “You tossed the ball right into his palm. He wasn’t even looking." 

Hinata took in Kageyama’s wide eyes and shaky smile.

"You weren't _looking_?"

Hinata shook his head. What else could he say?

“As expected from the only two freaks in the school.”

Hinata didn’t take offense to that. Neither of them did. There was something nice about no longer being mutually exclusive. There was a cheer from the other team members somewhere behind him, and for once, Hinata felt something he could call a drive.

He sent his partner a sharp nod. “One more time.”

* * *

He waited for Kageyama after a practice match the team had lost. He didn’t play in this one, but he had watched how the team struggled to receive the serves, and with each point lost, Kageyama only got a little more frustrated.

When the match was over, Kageyama carried himself like he had shackles around his wrists, as if the chain was attached to a mountain he had to drag with him as punishment. And the boy, much to his chagrin, had forgotten his water bottle back at the gym.

“I’ll just wait by the bathroom,” Hinata said. “I gotta take a piss anyway.”

Kageyama made a face, but he sped back to the court.

The school was much bigger than Karasuno, as much as Hinata hated to admit it. They had a full gym with built-in balconies. Usually if a practice match were to be held at Karasuno, the coach and Takeda would bring out the foldaway bleachers. Only a handful of students would bother to watch them play, and those students were usually the third-year’s friends.

This school looked like they could host a game, sit the whole student body, and have an entire television crew to film it.

“Typical Kageyama Tobio. He hasn’t changed one bit.”

“He can’t help it. He’s from Okinawa. He feels like he has something to prove.”

The voices were getting louder as they closed in on him. Hinata felt an itch on his arm. Kageyama was Okinawan? And why were these people talking like they knew him?

“What is he trying to prove, though? You can defy every stereotype, but you’ll still be what you are—unlikeable. He’s been at it since junior high. Nobody fucking likes you.”

The boy could hear a chord snap.

Hinata cleared his throat. The two boys, one whose head was shaped like a turnip, the other whose hair split perfectly down the middle, stared back at him. Hinata just smiled, an impish and boyish little grin, and put his e-cig in between his teeth.

He started huffing, and the other two boys shared an alarmed glance.

“You’re not allowed to smoke in here!”

Hinata feigned confusion. “Oh? I’m sorry, is my nicotine hurting you? I didn’t know openly racist people had any brain left to kill.”

He wanted to laugh when they had the audacity to look offended. “We aren’t racist.”

“No, of course not. You just judge people based on wherever they’re from. I totally get it,” he said, taking the cigarette between his fingers, and before he could continue, turnip head interrupted him.

“You don’t have any idea what you’re talking about, you fucking shrimp.”

“Really? Because you just used him being from Okinawa as a reason for not liking him.”

“Because. People from there are fucking lazy—“

“You’re _stereotyping_.”

“—and he went fucking crazy trying to prove himself. It’s only natural I won’t like him.”

Hinata scoffed, “And whose fault is that? Who set those expectations on him that he felt the need to push himself like that? Maybe you should have made him feel part of the team instead of making him feel like he didn’t belong there.”

Turnip head started sputtering. “Nobody is talking about—“

Hinata had to laugh by this point. It was sour. He fixed the two boys with a glare that only came with years of dealing with the same tiresome bullshit, and he could see how fast the color drained from their faces.

“You want to know what I really hate about people like you? You and Kageyama could be doing the exact same thing, and let’s be real, he would always be one step ahead—but he will never be the one whose name you can’t forget. And why is that?”

He didn’t expect an answer, but Hinata could pull the words straight out of turnip head’s lips.

“Because,” Hinata hissed, “why should an _Okinawan_ represent Japan?”

He put the cigarette to his lips again, just in time for an out of breath Kageyama to call out his name. He caught sight of the two boys towering over Hinata, and any hint of a smile on his face was gone.

“Hinata,” Kageyama said again, and this time, Hinata looked back and smiled.

“Yeah,” he took a light drag, and blew the smoke in their faces. “Remember us. Because the next time you see us, we’ll be giving you hell.”

* * *

Okinawa was like Japan’s well-kept secret. It existed, that much they couldn't hide. But their relationship? They could keep that on the down low. Hinata never understood the mainland’s constant denial of the Okinawan being part of Japan. The Okinawan, people of resistance who only desired peace. Most children born to the sandy beaches shared a sort of Third Culture experience Hinata knew all too well—the misplacement in one’s own skin and country.

It was a little different than Hinata’s situation. He would never be Japanese _enough_ for some people, and if he were to ever go where his father was, his Eastern upbringing would be _too much._   

The mainlanders were just flat-out discriminatory. And that, of course, came followed by stereotypes.

A lot of them painted an image of a people who were peaceful and lazy. Too laid back for their own good, eat too much pork, and speak weird Japanese.

Kageyama was nothing like that (though his love for pork seemed to hold true every time they grabbed a bite to eat before heading home).  

But there was nothing Hinata hated more than stereotypes, and the discrimination that stemmed from it. The double amount of effort one had to put in, to only get half of what they get.

“My father isn’t Japanese,” he told Kageyama one day, sitting underneath a tree in the schoolyard. Kageyama didn’t look surprised, but Hinata didn’t expect him to be. Everyone knew he was only half of their country. _Hafu._

“Where is he from?”

“America. He’s a little bit of everything, I think.”

“You’ve ever been?”

Hinata edged closer until their arms were touching. Kageyama stiffened, but otherwise didn’t move away from him. If anything, he moved closer. “Once or twice,” Hinata huffed. “My grandfather died when I was young, and he was the only family my dad had left. Worth visiting, anyway. I have an aunt, but,” he leaned his head on Kageyama’s shoulder and made himself comfortable

“…I remember we went to New York once. It’s the same as Tokyo,” Hinata continued.

Kageyama hummed. “Where’s your dad now?”

“Works oversees. Yours?”

There was a beat before he answered. “Back in Okinawa.”

“You visit?”

Kageyama nodded. “Usually during the summer break. I used to live there, and then we moved to the mainland. …Before we moved here, my father tried getting an apartment in Tokyo, actually.”

Hinata blinked. “What happened?”

“What always happens. They said no.”

He should have known the answer to that.

“Eventually we found a place. I got into school, was really good at volleyball, and—that’s that. Now I’m here.”

“Now you’re here,” Hinata echoed him.

The bell rang, but neither moved. Hinata watched the clouds assemble above them. The world dimmed, easing their visual strain so Hinata could look at Kageyama without feeling like the sun was hiding the best parts from him. He felt cooler now; around them everything became less vibrant, the sky less blinding. He could see everything, like he was coming out of himself, and coming back in. Kageyama's head fell on top of his and he could feel his soft breath tickle his forehead, and he felt presence. He felt _somewhere_. 

“Let’s skip class.”

“Where would we go?”

Hinata slowly got to his feet, and beamed brighter than any sun could shine on them. He held out his hand. Kageyama held it like it was something he had been waiting so long for.

“I know a place.”

* * *

The place was an empty park a lot further from the school than Kageyama had initially thought. There were plenty of trees and bushes hiding them, but if they walked further, they’d reach a clearing that became a children’s playground. But school wouldn’t let out for another two hours, and it wasn’t the first time Hinata had escaped here. They had most of the park to themselves, for now.

Hinata pulled out his cigarette and smiled.

“What are you doing?”

They were sitting on soft grass. Kageyama sat with his back against a tree. Hinata was kneeling directly in front of him, a little closer than they have ever been.

Hinata wrapped his lips around the e-cig. “Just hold in the smoke, and breathe out when I’m done.”

Kageyama still looked apprehensive. “What do you mean?”

“It’s called shot-gunning. Just do it,” Hinata rolled his eyes, took a drag, and held Kageyama’s cheeks in his soft hands.

They were almost kissing. Kageyama sucked in the toxic air in mild surprise, their lips touched for a moment, and he pushed Hinata away before he hacked up an entire lung on the boy he liked to stare at a little too long.

Hinata was holding fast onto his stomach, laughing his heart out.

“Oh my God, are you okay?” he asked in between chuckles. Kageyama’s blush reached his ears.

“I’m—I’m fine. Holy _shit_ ,” he said, and the outburst made Hinata laugh even harder. “I’m never doing that again.”

“Aww, why not?”

“I almost died!”

Hinata giggled a little before he said, “We can try again.”

Kageyama hesitated. “No, thank you.”

“We can do it without the smoke this time,” he said, and by this time, Hinata had already found a place for himself on Kageyama’s lap.

He was sure Kageyama had blown a fuse, because he didn’t say anything. So Hinata took his face in his soft hands again, stroked his smooth cheek, and curled his fingers on the curve of his neck.

“I’ll lead.”

He tapped their foreheads together, and breathed over his mouth before his teeth pulled on them. Hinata traced the softness of the other boy’s lips with his tongue, and then Kageyama took him in in a heated scraping of teeth and open-mouthed kissing.

He could feel their hearts beating out of their chests. Hinata could hear himself moaning into Kageyama’s mouth when their tongues touched, every time Kageyama squeezed his ass for a deeper kiss.

Hinata grinned against his mouth, tilting his head as he gave the boy’s lip a nice tug. “ _Kageyama,_ ” he sighed, and his nose followed up the taller boy’s jaw until Hinata was whispering in his ear. “I said I’d lead.”

Kageyama placed a soft kiss on his neck, and hid there. Was he embarrassed? Kageyama had the gall to be embarrassed?

“Sorry…”

Pulling away, Hinata looked at him with narrowed eyes and a devilish smile. His hand found its way underneath Kageyama’s shirt, slowly feeling up his hard stomach.

Kageyama wrapped his hands around Hinata’s waist.

“What?”

Hinata lowered his gaze, taking in his pouted lips, his labored breathing. There was a storm in those eyes.

Hinata stared into them. “Kiss me.”

Their lips met again; all electricity and hurricane. Hinata ground into him, and the storm clouds spread all underneath his skin. Kageyama’s moan was  _sweet_.

He had Hinata in his hands, and there was a part of Hinata that thought Kageyama had _all of him_ —and if there were ever a drop, if all of him wouldn't fit in his hands and spill over, it wouldn’t be so bad having known the warmth of a boy like him.

The thought had him laughing, because no matter how hard he tried to be, he’d still be soft for some things. He felt more than saw Kageyama smiling against him.

“Why are you laughing?”

Hinata shook his head, then licked Kageyama’s lips just to see the desire cloud his eyes one more time.

“Go out with me, stupid.”

“I don’t know,” Kageyama droned, and then Hinata rubbed against him and his breath hitched. “ _Oh_ \--”

They kissed. “Nobody has to know if you don’t want them to.”  

“I don’t really care,” said Kageyama. “The school isn’t as big when I’m with you. They don’t get to me as much. It’s like…we’re our own island, I guess.”

“You’re so poetic.”

Kageyama frowned. Hinata kissed it away. “I get it though. I belong somewhere with you.”

“I like it. I like you.”

That was it for him. He was fucked.

“I like you too.”

But he was down for it anyway.

**Author's Note:**

> I do feel like this isn't my best work, but the topic is very dear to my heart. Any criticism would be appreciated! Thank you so much for taking the time out to read. :)


End file.
